The cultural highlights for our region this weekend include Baroque, gospel, and Latin music, poetry, Irish music, a new sound installation… plus a whole lot more.
The legendary Blind Boys of Alabama will present a virtual concert – an Easter weekend special – via the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington, tonight at 9. The award-winning gospel group has already performed at the Mahaiwe twice, with both shows bringing the house down. Now you have the opportunity to bring your own house down when you stream the Blind Boys from the Mahaiwe right into your own living room. Visit mahaiwe.org for more information.
Also at the Mahaiwe this weekend, the stage epic War Horse from London’s National Theatre screens online now through next Tuesday. War Horse is a powerfully moving and imaginative stage drama filled with stirring music and songs. At its heart are astonishing life-size puppets by South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company, who bring breathing, galloping, charging horses to life on stage. Visit mahaiwe.org for details.
And also coming to you live from the Mahaiwe stage are The Sebastians, a Baroque ensemble performing in the Close Encounters with Music series at the Mahaiwe on Saturday at 7:30 p.m., in a free livestream. The program will feature Telemann’s “Paris” Quartet, the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, and works by Vivaldi, CPE Bach, Handel and Porpora. Close Encounters with Music artistic director Yehuda Hanani will be joining the septet on the cello. For more info, visit cewm.org.
A new sound installation takes over the galleries at MASS MoCA in North Adams as part of that cultural laboratory’s Auditory After Hours series, this one created by Ladama, a Latin alternative ensemble comprised of four musicians and activists from Brazil, Venezuela, Columbia, and the United States. The group’s highly percussive and celebratory sound should provide a unique soundtrack to accompany a walk – or even a dance -- through the galleries. The event takes place on Saturday between 7 and 8 p.m. Timed tickets are required; visit massmoca.org for details.
The Williamstown Theatre Festival Season on Audible is now streaming Wish You Were Here! by Sanaz Toossi. Set over the course of 14 years, Toossi’s timely world premiere play shines a light on the daring potential of friendship amid the relentless aftershocks of political upheaval.
Berkshire poet Peter Filkins kicks off his virtual book tour via Simon’s Rock College in Great Barrington on Monday at 5 p.m. via a free Zoom session. Filkins’s latest book of poetry, called Water / Music, will be published by Johns Hopkins University Press the following day. Water / Music includes 53 poems exploring the fraught relationship between the natural world and the human. What could be more relevant for our moment? Find more info at simons-rock.edu
Fans of Irish music take note: On Saturday at 7:30 p.m.at the Towne Crier Cafe in Beacon, N.Y., members of Cherish the Ladies, including cofounders Joanie Madden and Mary Coogan, bring their award-winning, virtuosic Celtic blend of ballads and dance tunes to the cafe.
This week’s new BSO NOW ONLINE video stream features BSO Principal Guest Conductor Colin Davis, in the 1970s, leading the Boston Symphony Orchestra in "Siegfried’s Rhine Journey" from Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, originally recorded in 1976; Sibelius’ Symphony No. 6, originally recorded in 1975; and Elgar’s Cockaigne Overture (In London Town), originally recorded on January 1978; all are available for viewing through May 1 at www.bso.org/now
Seth Rogovoy is editor of the Rogovoy Report, available at rogovoyreport.com
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